There is no “there there on the Internet”. This simple thought is an important point by which to consider some recent innovative thinking going on on opposite sides of the globe.

There are two videos worth watching by which to understand online identity and its implications in finance. The first video is from Dazza Greenwood, MIT Media Lab eCommerce guru. This video captures the exploding issue of online identity and the idea that it is captured in a variety of silos, from MySpace to eGovernment.

The second video is about eMe, an idea that captured the interest of Sibos 2009 attendees and Guy Kawaski, entrepreneur and evangelist. This is a novel concept to make the individual the center of their financial universe with a sort of digital safety deposit box.

However, there is an even broader set of implications that flow from these two snippets and from Joy Babu’s question in this discussion on a centralized repository of online medical records. And this larger implication is framed by the reality that “there is no there there on the Internet.” Both eMe and online identity concepts, like OpenID, continue to be conceived within the idea that there are destinations in the Internet world, like there are in the real world. However, in the virtual world, I can be everywhere, anywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

Thus, for eMe to be truly revolutionary it can not exist simply in my financial silo. Data standards, like HL7 (Health Level Seven) or CDISC (Clinical Data Interchange Standard), in healthcare make sense in a data silo. SIF (Student Interchange Framework) in education also makes sense in a data silo. But, as immunizations make clear, is this data record a health domain issue or an education one? Or does it matter? Could a change in focus to the individual create the new locus of the Internet? Could a ME 1.0 revolution return us to the roots of the Internet and liberate us from the destination metaphor of web pages? Why put this data in two places, when it already exists in one?

CLOUD (the Consortium for Local Ownership and Use of Data),Inc. believes a new era is at hand, and that XBRL in healthcare, eMe in finance and online identity questions from MIT are part of a broader revolution. It is the perspective of CLOUD, that with standards in education, healthcare, finance and beyond, the only unifying place in the value chain for a new standard is the individual, a ME 1.0. Rather than trying to rationalize data standards from various silos, a ME 1.0 approach ensures that all of an individual’s domains are brought together at the one point of singularity on the Internet, people. CLOUD is on this path to make the Internet about people, rather than just web pages.

As CLOUD builds a new contextual markup language (CTML, rather than HTML), it will also be outlining an appropriate metamodel and syntax for the various dialects (education, healthcare, finance), supplementing data standards, rather than replacing them, as Paul Wilkinson notes in his post to this discussion. Unlike Google Health or other approaches to this problem in healthcare, CLOUD does not envision simply creating yet one more digital filing cabinet for our information. CLOUD sees identity as a fabric issue, rather than a destination one, meaning that the various parts of ME can stay where they are, but with ME in control and at the center.

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Places of the Soul, by Christopher Day, makes the point that architecture must begin based on where the designed structure is to be placed.  As he notes in the book, studies have shown that there is strong correlation between recovery time at the hospital and patient view, with every leaf being ‘worth its weight in gold.’  Design matters.  The Health 2.0 team has architected an excellent agenda that looks at the design issue of the healthcare system from the perspective of the patient.  I am excited to be attending and look forward to the possibility of CLOUD presenting its new vision and language during the Human Centered Design Contest.

CLOUD believes that the Internet needs a new design, too, an architecture based on starting from a new place, the individual.  ME 1.0 looks forward to meeting Health 2.0 and engaging in a new blueprint for the future!

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